The Structure of Syntactic Typologies

Abstract

This article illustrates how language variation and the limits of variation are given a shared and principled explanation in Optimality Theory. It shows that languages can be 'uniform', choosing the same grammatical structures in three different sentence types. They can also be 'non-uniform', but the combinations of grammatical structures that they can exhibit are extremely restricted. The theory characterizes possible and impossible grammatical systems without special stipulations or additional theoretical machinery.

Phonological Effects on Syntactic Variation

“…2007) provide statistical evidence that the choice among these constructions is influenced by a large number of factors. The potentially phonological factors include the difference between monosyllabic pronouns and other NPs (e.g., me versus designs; see, e.g., Zwicky 1986, Vogel 2006, the "weight" of the NPs (the men versus the rules of the Geneva Convention; see, e.g., Zec & Inkelas 1990; for an overview, see Wasow 2002), and the length of the verb ( give versus explain; see, e.g., Fraser 1998, Grimshaw 2005.…”

“…One has to do with the length of the verb. In an interesting discussion of foot structure and the dative alternation, Grimshaw (2005) points out that double objects are allowed mainly with verbs that have exactly one foot, suggesting that familiar contrasts such as John gave/ * donated the charity money may have a prosodic origin. This observation suggests that we are dealing with the prosodic preference for binarity: V + NP yields (2008).…”

“…The six possible total rankings constitute the factorial typology of the three constraints, shown in Table 4 with the predicted outcome for each total ranking. For the role of factorial typologies in syntax, see Grimshaw (2013).…”

The Final-over-Final Condition, Stringency, and Typological Structure

“…Responses to such cases generally fall into three categories (Erlewine 2017:33, (57)): (a) reject FOFC as wrong; (b) show that the exception is not a counterexample, because it is not subject to FOFC for some reason; or (c) modify FOFC or its domain. Derived from the interaction of constraints in an OT system, FOFC exceptions can arise from basic constraint violability (see also Grimshaw 2013 on Minimalism and OT differences). When candidates are evaluated with only the proposed set of structural constraints, non-FOFC candidates are harmonically bounded (nonoptimal under any ranking of the constraints in CON; Samek-Lodovici and Prince 2002); however, they may become possible optima when these constraints interact with others.…”